Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly and the Irish are ranked No. 1 and could get a shot at a national title with a win over USC Saturday. / Matt Cashore, US Presswire

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Begin with names of yore. This is Notre Dame, so why not?

Ara Parseghian. Frank Leahy. Lou Holtz. Dan Devine.

All of them have something in common. All of them won the national championship in their third season as coach of the Fighting Irish. From that moment on, their spot in the Irish pantheon was secure.

Anyone need reminding which year this is for Brian Kelly?

Three seasons. Apparently the recommended construction period to create magic at Notre Dame.

So maybe it is just time. Time for the Irish to be ranked No. 1 in the polls for the first time in 19 years and to own their first 11-0 record since 1989. Time for them to crowd in among the elite, after waiting restlessly outside for so long. The aura, the mystique, the national championship talk ... all back in business at Notre Dame.

Or at least they will be if the Irish win at Southern California today.

"They all to a man know that it doesn't mean much if you're No. 1 for just three or four days," Kelly said of his players this week, when the Irish moved to the top of the polls. "So they understand the importance of the USC game."

It has all come together for Notre Dame, when more than a few were starting to believe it never would again. Looking at recent years, with one mediocre season after another, it was easy to believe the age of the Irish was the same as the age of rotary dial phones. Gone.

What vexed them most? Academic standards? Weather? The explosion of the Southeastern Conference, Pac-12 and Big 12 as recruiting juggernauts?

Kelly believed none of the above: Nothing should stop Notre Dame from being Notre Dame, if the right players played the right way.

"I have not seen anything here in my time that will not allow us to continue to have the highest graduation rate and compete for a national championship, and I've been doing it 23 years," he says. "So I think I know what it looks like if you couldn't do it."

And now they have.

Building a bond

Any team would crave a moment such as this, but none more than from a place that has had to try to claw its way back from the edge of national irrelevance. That's what the Irish veterans have done. No wonder senior day last week was so meaningful; hugs from families and an 11-0 record, too. And linebacker Manti Te'o, the leader of the pack, talking of how he would remember the day for the rest of his life - "Pure joy," he called it - and of the honor of "taking this program to places it hasn't been in a long time."

A long time, all right, and they feel every disappointing day, month and year here.

"I think there's no question that this group is stronger because of the experiences that they've had along the way," Kelly says. "And that's what makes this such a good football team, because they know what that end looks like and they don't like it very much."

Something can be said for shared frustration. It can build a bond, even as it hurts.

"We've got guys that care about each other," Kelly says. "They don't all hang out together, but they care about each other because we're all in it for the same reason."

So it all had to intersect at the proper moment, and this week it has. The offense. The defense. The opportunity.

The defense has been there from the start this season and never blinked. Notre Dame has allowed nine touchdowns - five fewer than any other team - and is tied with Alabama for No. 1 in scoring defense, at 10 points a game. There have been two rushing touchdowns by opponents all season.

This is the stuff of history. The Irish have led the nation in scoring defense once, and that was 1946.

The offense has been a work in progress, with sophomore Everett Golson sometimes in too big of a hurry for his own good. Sometimes in need of relief from Tommy Rees. Sometimes still searching for the discipline a quarterback needs to lead a national championship contender. "Quite frankly, when he got here, (he) was just a freelancer," Kelly says of the early Golson.

But Kelly now talks of more disciplined Golson, and that was especially evident in the 38-0 mashing of Wake Forest, though the opponent wasn't exactly Alabama. As the stakes have grown, so has the urgency for the offense to jell. The worst thing would have been to waste all that good defense.

"We've got to be doing something besides doing just enough to win the game," offensive tackle Zack Martin says. "All the coaches have been harping throughout the season that it's going to click, and I think it's finally starting to do that."

Or as Golson says, "You want to pull your weight."

There was a practice last week in which Kelly looked at his quarterback and saw Golson performing correct reads, with proper footwork, making things happen while staying with the concepts. Golson mentioned he had been studying film of other quarterbacks, especially one guy who used to play in this state. "Actually, I was kind of acting a little like Peyton Manning," Golson said later. "I wanted to emulate that the next day in practice."

Kelly nearly did cartwheels off the practice field that night.

"I think we're seeing a guy that is growing each and every week," he says. "Now he has made some mistakes that a young quarterback has a tendency to make. We've got to slow him down a little bit."

Kelly had expected a big Wake Forest game from his quarterback. Golson passed for 346 yards and three touchdowns, evading the rush when needed, creating explosive plays when he could. Yep, growing.

"He played the best game of his life, and it just shows how much he's grown as a person and as a player," wide receiver John Goodman said. "He's the guy we want to lead us to the promised land."

Opportunity arrives

So if the defense was as hard as a South Bend winter and the offense was finding answers, what was left to make it all work?

A chance. You do not get a chance from the No. 3 spot in the final Bowl Championship Series standings, but that is no longer an issue, now that Oregon and Kansas State have fallen. No system eccentricities to worry about. Not a computer or human poll will stop the Irish now if they finish 12-0.

So much can be gained Saturday at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and so much lost. This is not the moment for the Irish to be distracted by the growing noise around them, and all those psyches under all those gold helmets seem to understand that.

Golson: "As far as I'm concerned, my head is down. My foot's on the gas. I'm never going to look up and lose focus."

Te'o, the linebacker who has grown into a legend, not to mention getting his name in Heisman Trophy polls: "All that noise can't be possible if we don't beat USC. When you think of it in that aspect, it's pretty easy to avoid everything."

Linebacker Danny Spond: "Everybody likes to talk about it, there's no doubt about it. But this is how we're trained. It's who we are."

Kelly understands what could be ahead. The unmatchable uproar of Notre Dame on the brink of its first national championship in 24 years. Individual accolades. A Heisman Trophy for Te'o, for example.

"Now that we've been given this opportunity, we've got to make the most of it," Kelly says.

It is, indeed, special to have the chance again. Ask any Notre Damer from the last two decades. Ask Kelly, the third-year coach. Maybe it's just time.